Caloric Food Content Lab Essay Sample

Objective
Is to measure various food items and become familiar with different energy units like calories and joules. Also, we will be using simple household products and follow the standard safety procedures of this lab.

Materials

Procedure
First, use a digital scale to determine the empty weight of the 100ml beaker. The, you are going to fill the beaker half way with water (approximately 50ml) and weigh it again. Take the water and beaker weight minus the empty beaker weight is the net weight of water used for the experiment, and record it. Take a piece of aluminum foil and place on the table top to catch any spills, and it also can be used to reflect heat upward. Set the burner stand over the aluminum foil and place the beaker of water on top of the burner stand. Measure and record the initial temperature of water. Marshmallow: Determine the mass of the marshmallow and an empty fork. Take the marshmallow on the fork and light it using a candle. Once the marshmallow is lit and burning, hold it under the beaker of water while stirring the water with the thermometer.

When the marshmallow is completely burnt, weigh the fork with the marshmallow remnants and record. Subtract the weight of the empty for to obtain the weight of the unburned marshmallow residue. Record the temperature of the water, which is the final temperature. Peanut or Walnut: It may take a while to keep them lit, so you made to move them around in the flame to get them burning. When it is well lit and burning, immediately hold the peanut under the beaker of water and occasionally stir the water with the thermometer. When the walnut is peanut or walnut is almost completely burned and the flame has been extinguished, record the final temperature of the water and determine the weight of the nut residue and record. Repeat this step using the other sample.

Observations

Conclusion/Discussion
Overall, the goal was to measure various food items and become familiar with different energy units like calories and joules. After doing so, I was able to understand the principle of combustion and how heating a material was energy in the form of heat. The neat thing about this experiment was to seeing the different samples that were used and how the samples were able to create heat and make the temperature of the water increase.

Questions

A. Which of the foods tested contains the most energy per gram? The walnut contained the most energy compared to the other foods tested. B. How do your experimental results compare to published values? The highest content is the walnut, which it coincides with the values listed in the Labpaq. C. What type of reaction is used in calorimetry?

The type of reaction used in calirmetry is the combustion reaction D. What are the products of the reactions?
The products of the reaction were the energy from the food, which would be heat, carbon dioxide, and water E. Where did the products go?
The energy of the product left in the form of heat

F. A student performing an experiment to determine the caloric content of a cashew nut collected the following data:
● Mass of cashew nut before burning: 0.55 g
● After burning: 0.05 g
● Temp. increase of 200 g of water: 7.0 C

1. Calculate the total energy released by the combustion of the cashew nut by using the water temp. increase, the mass of the water and specific heat capacity of water.

1400 calories=5880J at 4.2 J/cal
2. Calculate the energy released per gram of cashew nut consumed in the reaction.